I am worn out from mopping. The house is spick and span, and the furniture gleaming in the sun. We have been overruled with testosterone this week, and loud radio music blasting a tinny sound of unfamiliar songs. The shower room is being refurbished and although it is small it seems to warrant every tradesman in Fife to have an input. John is now painting the walls and ceiling beautifully ready for the fixtures to be inserted. Mirror man has just been to measure up. In the meantime, I feel quite odd sleeping in another room, it’s like being on holiday, and a lot cheaper.

This weekend we danced the night away in the Community Centre. We celebrated Robert Burns, but only as a passing. The haggis was piped in, and addressed (by the retired doctor). John was relieved he was retired as he said if he had been in practice and he had gone to moan about a leg or whatever, the reply would have been totally double Dutch to him! Very broad Fife was our retired Burns addresser.

Haggis was good, company fun, and the ceilidh band superb. As Jill said, ‘We like to get over the haggis bit and just get on with the dancing.’ Quite. I sort of missed all the other speeches and rituals.

But, dance we did. I think we sat out twice. I was just relieved we didn’t need an ambulance as the pace was fast and furious, Rabbie would have been proud of us.

We sauntered down the brae, me in my wellies that I had changed into for ‘just in case’, and ended up in a neighbour’s house till 2 a.m. I awoke feeling young again, i.e. splitting head and feeling weird from lack of sleep. Did like these shelducks, very soothing to look at.

Talking of recapturing youthful times, we have both signed up with the University of Edinburgh to do short courses. John is doing geology of the Scottish mountains, and I am doing opera on Wednesdays and Shakespeare in Italy on Fridays. It is wonderful. I sit and listen to lecturer James talk of old friends: Boccaccio, Erasmus, Machiavelli, and Philip Sidney. James flits in and out with his stories and asides, and suddenly the text is full of innuendos that I had missed and would never have known.

Our opera man leaps to the piano and plays chords and highlights the music; he too fleshes out the composer, and makes reference to gentlemen with lorgnettes going to the opera to lust after the dancing girls, and then he is off on Zola’s Nana that I read years ago.

I went to see Gounod’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’,

and this week we are talking about Philip Glass,

and I will see the opera The Trial on Saturday night. His base chords ever descending are menacing, like in a film noire; you can almost see the shadow on the wall and the silhouette of the trench coat and hat.

So with days filled up, and the weather so bitter, January has passed quite quickly. We did visit Blackness Castle, a wonderful ship-like structure jutting into the Forth and guarding the hinterland.

The walls were thick, the interior beautifully kept, it was quite a surprise. It is also the site of many scenes from the series Outlander that we have just acquired. Haven’t watched it yet, but it seems to have rave reviews. A wig for a soldier is rumoured to have cost £2000! Not done on the cheap then.

Knitting is nearing completion. I started a medieval cardigan in Aran for Natasha, and she announced she didn’t like the pattern after I had finished the back.

No matter I shall wear it myself if I can fit into it, as somehow I seem to have grown. I did buy the most wonderful long cardigan coat-like garment this week. I was lusting after it with the ‘courtly love’ so common in Elizabethan times, when men wrote sonnets to the one of their dreams who was out of their reach. I did consider writing a sonnet to my cardigan, but in the end the temptation was too much. I shall wear it now with pride and aplomb.

I shall just have to do without my giant marshmallows for a while – might save money and might lose weight!